Marketing involves ensuring that customers are aware of a company’s products or services and also making them to gain inters in their quality and effectiveness while also creating a strong relationship with them. It is a major component of a business because it enables creation of new markets, and it involves communication sales and development of an enterprise. Activities involved in marketing include product pricing branding promotion, distribution, market research, market dominance, management and strategy.
MRF (Madras rubber factory) is a company that specializes in manufacturing tryes and it is located in India. It is a very large and major company in the tyre industry and exports its products to more than 75 countries in the world.
It has six manufacturing units in India and has the largest variety of tyres to include trucks and bus tyres, light tyres for passenger and personal cars, tyres, farm, industrial and sports activities. The company is also involved in various sport activities such as bat and cricket which is a major marketing strategy for the company. MRF also has branded its products boosting over 10 different brands.
A brand is the identity of a product, service or a company; it could be a color, sign, a symbol a name among others, it is also a trademark.
It enables relating the product to the customer’s, staff, and other stake holder’s of the company. The brand is used to communicate the uniqueness of the product service or company and hence it is an essential part of advertising. In order to achieve successful marketing through branding one has to make sure that the brand is recognized by customers even in absence of the parent company name.
One also has to understand the needs of the clients so as to satisfy them, and maintain them. Companies should also be informed that branding is not about competition with other companies in the industries but is meant to inform the customer who is offering what. A good brand communicates this, test credibility of the product, creates a relation with the customers, motivates them and wins their loyalty and trust.
MRF company slogan is ‘’tires with muscles’’ ‘, and some of the product brands are; Lug 50-FS, MRF Nylogrip Zappea, a high performance tyre for new generation bikes, MRF Racing, MRF ZVTS, a steel-belted premium radial, MRF Super’ and ,MRF Events.
The company also has brand ambassadors who are mainly involved in sports such as; Sachin Tendulkar and Steve Waugh who are experienced batsmen, their bats have been branded MRF for the many years that they have been in the sports. The company has a program to improve cricket known as the MRF pace foundation that trains young people.
Another marketing strategy is promotion; it involves persuasion and informing a buyer so as to influence their decision to buy. Promotion can be done through the media this are; news papers, TV, radio, mobile phones the internet or advertising agencies. Other forms of advertisements are; product placement, merchandising, shows, sponsorships or public relations.
In promotion people should adopt a promotional plan or a mix that consists of sales, promotion, direct marketing, advertising and publicity. A company can have promotions for different objectives such as retaliating to a competitive move made by other companies, launching a new brand, and also to increase revenues. Promotions can be long term or short term Coca-Cola has had a long term one ‘My coke awards’ in addition most companies use the word special offers when having promotions.
MRF has not been involved in promotional activities in large scale may be because they have a large and stable customer base hence the huge sales.
However MRF in some occasions gives special offers to their very regular customers and also when launching a new brand for example; the racing tires were offered to top rally motorists when they were launched to market their effectiveness and performance. MRF also does a lot of advertising of their products, there is no single day that there is no an advertisement of their products in one or more media channels.
Statistics have shown that it is the leading company in the industry that advertises a lot in the print media. Because of this strategy the customers are always informed on new products and also reminded of the existing ones including the improvements made.
The tyre industry is relatively composed of about 450 tire manufacturing factories and is the largest consumer of rubber in the world since millions of tires are manufacture each year. India is the producer of tires having a 8.02% annual growth of the industry .However it faces stiff competition from china because it is achieving new markets every day. Truck and bus tryes is the biggest segment of the industry passenger cars tires follow, then motorcycle tires and scooter tires are the least and they are used in the two wheeler industry.
The tyre industry is currently being faced by an increase of costs of the raw materials used; the industry uses a lot of materials and the slightest change in the costs largely affects the revenues not forgetting the huge duty on tyres. The major players in the industry are MRF, Apollo and Ceat tyres. Other companies in the industry are Metro tires Ralson,Michelin group ,JK ltd tyres and Bridgestone among others.
MRF is the leading company in this industry and has the most envied market record in the world. It has the most sales and revenues, a large and stable customer base, most manufacturing plants, brands variety and the most effective advertising strategies. The company is the only supplier of large motor businesses such as General motors, Fiat and Ford and it is the world’s largest exporter of tires.
Previous analysis carried out on tyre brands showed that six of MRFN brands are leading in sales and quality with a market share of 22%.It has recently revived its auto industry and joined in the radial tyre industry hence business for them is expected to shoot even higher. It has been voted three times for the award of customer satisfaction by JD Power ASIA Pacific. The factors considered are durability, traction, appearance and handling.
As said earlier MRF is greatly involved in sports and has a pace foundation that sponsors youngsters into playing cricket an activity that has turned to be a very effective marketing strategy for the company. It is also involved in community based programs to improve the lives of rural folks a step that other companies have not taken seriously.
In conclusion MRF has managed to dominate the tyre industry and if current figures and analysis are to be trusted it will continue being in the same status. Advertising is a major component of doing business and hence every business should have good marketing strategies to ensure that their products are well known and recognized in the market. As note above branding, and promotions are some of the major advertising strategies that successful companies use to achieve customer’s interest and trust.